Something stinks about PUC secrecy

You can’t abbreviate Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission without “P.U.,” which seems fitting in light of the smelly situation surrounding its recent actions — or, to be more precise — its troubling inaction.

The Harrisburg-based commission has so far steadfastly refused to turn over a document to The (Wilkes-Barre) Times Leader that, by the commission’s own rules, belongs to the public. The paperwork should be accessible to not only this newspaper, but also to you, your neighbors and the growing cadre of newspapers statewide that have followed the path of Times Leader reporter Andrew M. Seder and also filed a formal request to see it.

Even the state’s Office of Open Records — the arbiters of disputes involving whether government papers and such can be kept confidential — has ruled the document should not be withheld. The Office reviewed arguments on both sides and last week gave the PUC a 30-day deadline to file an appeal or turn over the sought-after document, which in this case is a letter.

So, what’s the letter say?

Only certain people, including the tightfisted folks at the PUC, know for sure. But it’s believed the document is an anonymous letter written by a PPL electric utility employee who blew the whistle on some unlawful behavior the company committed during cleanup from a massive October 2011 snowstorm. The nor’easter pounded parts of Pennsylvania and the Northeast, resulting in widespread blackouts.

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As its crews feverishly worked to restore power to businesses and homes, including some in Luzerne and neighboring counties, PPL allegedly transferred one of its teams from a high-priority job to a low-priority job — a violation of both its internal guidelines and state law. The Allentown-based utility agreed last month to pay a $60,000 fine to resolve the matter, while admitting no guilt.

As part of the settlement between PPL and the PUC, the regulatory commission foolishly agreed to keep a lid on the “tip letter.”

A PUC attorney has argued that the letter’s contents offer clues about the whistle blower, and his or her identity should be protected.

We concur. But any revealing words or phrases about the unnamed letter writer, who presumably is protected from retaliation by whistle blower laws, can be redacted while the remaining text is made available for public inspection.

By refusing to comply with that simple fix, it appears the PUC has another, more pressing motive. Perhaps it doesn’t want to further embarrass the utility company, the region’s largest electric provider. Or maybe it seeks to avoid being part of revealing the electric customer who in the midst of a weather emergency received preferential treatment.

Too bad. Those shouldn’t be the PUC’s main concerns. It should — according to its own mission statement — “balance the needs of consumers and utilities” and “protect the public interest.”

The public has every right to better understand what went wrong during that snowstorm and why the PUC saw fit to settle the case. The longer Pennsylvanians are kept in the dark on this matter, the more the whole thing stinks.